Inspiration
by Spooksdarkhero
Summary: Howard Stark had never met a person like Steve Rogers


Inspiration

Howard Stark had never met someone like Steve Rogers before.

He was used to meeting other army grunts and they all treated him like he was just some rich boy playing soldier. One had even asked him to clean his gun! So Stark had not really tried hard on his job as a defence contractor. He quickly became fed up of having to deal with the various generals who always want the biggest and most powerful toys for all of their grunts and hate you when they don't deliver. He often felt that he was spoilt. That maybe he was an arrogant playboy messing around with a military contract as it would make him look good to the folks back so they would buy his products.

But Steve wasn't like all the rest. In a way he had cheated to get to where he was but he seemed determined to earn what had been given to him. Stark had to admired that as he wondered what he would be like in Steve's position… probably bedding every girl he could!

Steve had listened to him which was so rare and had been so proud when Stark had showed him the suit that he had created for Stark. The suit was old fashioned and certainly not going to allow Steve to blend into trees and bushes while out on missions. But Steve had liked it as it made him or the idea that he wanted to represent stand out. Good over evil, a simple notion that Steve had been all about the little good guy beating the big bad guy. Well Stark could relate to that one as he had worked hard making him millions. Not all his ideas worked of course, Stark had often felt that he had rotten luck of being born in the wrong time period as he was sure that in 100 years flying cars would be the norm.

Steve had picked a shield. He had overlooked all the other more offensive weapons Stark had created and made, the swords, spears and picked a shield as his trademark. When Stark had asked him he had replied _"I want to protect America's ideals not enforce them" _Stark had to admire that. He was as straight laced as they come and Stark had found that oddly amusing. It was refreshing in a way given the war they were fighting that Steve had hope that they were going to do the right thing.

Howard had also never encountered such a device as the Tesseract, a powerful energy source of unknown potential. It could power anything and everything it seemed. No wonder the Red Skull's army was so powerful with that thing powering their machines and guns. It was being used to fight wars when it could power countries and major cities for decades and never fade or burn out.

Steve had gone missing over the Artic and no one knew where he was. Stark certainly was not going to stand by and sit around in his boardroom writing a short speech for Rogers's funeral he had to do something. He searched and searched, spending a small fortune in the process and managed to find the Tesseract. But Rogers was a man out of time and place it seemed lost forever somewhere there. Now he was nothing more than a memory as so many men and women became after the war.

As the years went on Stark had continued to research and study the Tesseract. He owed it to all those who had given their lives in that war to bring some good out of it. The Tesseract could be a brilliant symbol to the world, a clean and never ending power source to unite behind rather than fight over. Stark had also watched as history went on wondering what Steve might have made of it. He suspected that he would be sick to his stomach if he had lived to see the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam war in which suddenly America did not seem like the good guy. The idea of the good guy beating the big bad guy seemed like another lifetime away.

Stark had pushed himself and his company he had wanted to change things for the better. He had taken his work more and more seriously and when it came to his son Tony he had to be a hard with him. Tony was full of potential even from an early age. Howard had watched in amazement at how quickly he picked up on such things like reading and writing and made him so proud when he seemed to follow his father's footsteps. But Tony was also lazy frustrating Howard as he never seem to truly push himself and Tony lacked focus always running off from idea to idea never finishing them. Someone needed to put him in a dark cave out in the middle of nowhere if they ever wanted Tony Stark to work hard!

Nevertheless Howard Stark until his death had tried in his own way to make the world a better place for so many people other than himself.

And it was all because Howard Stark had never met a man like Steve Rogers before.

Fin


End file.
